


Give a Man a Fish, and You’ll Feed Him for a Day

by owlady



Series: Whales and Bats both Echolocate [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Transformation, but like the fish version, the red fin, this is more ridiculous mer timeline nonsense, who even knows what rules mer magic follows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27380080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlady/pseuds/owlady
Summary: Make a man a fish, and you’ll traumatize him for life.There are some days that Jason wants nothing more than to walk up to the Joker and shoot him in the face with a harpoon. The sharper, the better.But Jason can’t.Because the Joker stole his fucking legs.
Series: Whales and Bats both Echolocate [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2000107
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	1. Joker's Net

When you’re a kid, you think you’re invincible. Or that’s what adults think. The reality is very different- when you’re a kid, at least in Jason’s opinion.

When you’re a kid, you know practically everything can kill you. What you’ve got on your side is hope, and the benefit of having no experience with most types of pain.

Like having bloody runes carved into your legs while you try not to scream, because you’re underwater and only have five more minutes of oxygen left before you drown. Most kids don’t have to deal with that. The pressure on all sides, the massive headache and gasping pressure from a mer with red, red lips slashing yet another line dangerously close to an important artery. 

Blood clouds the water, but it never clouds the fish’s bastard smile. It barely muffles his ecstatic giggles, given just how large this merman is. A true Leviathan, practically the size of Bruce himself-

“There’s that winning smile!” God, Jason wishes he could spit in the Fish’s face, but then he’d run out of air even faster. And he has to get out of here- has to rescue his mother, Sheila, before the underwater cave Joker dumped her body in floods completely as the tide finally rushes in. “And here I thought you didn’t have any teeth!”

Jason glares.

He tries to kick, just to get the carving tool- he isn’t even sure what it is, beyond bad and painful and large. Can’t get a good look. It’s too red.

Not his wetsuit- that’s red, but…

His head is swimming.

Bruce, he thinks, wishing he could click into the water. Wishing his pod would come and devour this sorry excuse for a sea blight. Wishing he wasn’t dumb enough or slow enough or human enough to get caught in the first place. Jay had promised. He’d promised Dick, and he’d promised Bruce- he wouldn’t die before he was 90. He couldn’t do much about the fact that he would die before both of them, but he could try to be there. Try to help.

“Now, don’t bite- This’ll only hurt a lot,” the large mer croons, and he tosses away something shiny and metal before grabbing Jason’s legs. Tight. The cuts burn, the salt is an inferno, and the pressure finally breaks Jason’s threshold. He shrieks, and the Joker just uses his other hand to clamp around Jason’s torso. He crushes Jason’s oxygen tank, and the world explodes in bubbles and water.

Panic.

Ice shoots into his mouth and nose. Jason can’t breathe- can’t physically do it. He can’t breathe, there’s no air, he has no room, his mother is about to die, and Bruce- Bruce, he’s sorry, Dick, he can’t apologize enough, Alfred-

Jason really wanted to stay, for them. He wanted to stay this time, and get old and saggy and lose all of his teeth.

This isn’t how Jason wants to die.

The Joker twists him in the middle, and there’s a terrible snap-

It hurts. Fills him, floods him, that awful pain.

He doesn’t even realize that the pain is fake. That his brain is making up signals for something that isn’t there, because the Joker has pulled off one of Jason’s legs like a turkey’s at Thanksgiving dinner.

The second leg is barely a twinge, but Jason figures that’s the blood loss, hypothermia, and shock settling in. If not the fact that he’s blacking out.

“If you can’t eat ‘em, “ Joker croons, “Join ‘em!”

There’s a terrible crunching noise, and finally, Jason knows no more.

Bruce’ll kill him, is his last thought.  
Jason knows that Bruce will kill the Joker, for this. He’s at peace with that.

Some animals just have to be put down.


	2. Neptune's Pool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason cries, song filling the water. But he must learn. She is not a threat, and Damian must be allowed to study.  
> He will regain his mind. And Talia will send him back to Bruce, along with her Damian.  
> She cannot untwist herself, but she can keep her son safe.  
> After all, that is what pod does.

Talia knows the risks of using Neptune’s Pool on human beings. Of twisting the shape of one being to form it into another, without warning or consent. She knows the risks of using it on mer, of stripping them of their longevity and their sanity.

Her beloved had come to her, once, no legs to speak of. And he had left her, mere years later, unable to keep his mind stable and coherent without the soothing rock of the ocean.

Talia may have been loved by Bruce, but she knows- his little harbor across the sea is his true love. It is where his heart lies.

It was where his heart was torn out. Not once, but twice.

Perhaps that is what causes Talia to forgo the warnings and to scoop his child from the sea, pale and lost. His body had been so cold- this young Jason.

Beaten and carved into by a sharpened crowbar thrown into the sea. He had suffered. He will continue to suffer, Talia knows. She can only hope that the life she returns to him is worth the pain as she slides his body into Neptune’s waters, emerald green and clear to the bottom.

He is dead, she knows, or as close to dead as one can be. His mind, his body, they have been preserved by the salt and the cold, but there’s no guarantee that his soul hasn’t decided to give up, let go, and float towards the sun.

With his eyes gently shut, he looks like an even younger child. He sleeps, and Talia can’t help but think of her Damian, barely a calf of a whale and a toddler of a human being. Both, and neither. Bruce will love her for this. Talia knows.

Perhaps he will come home to her. And bring his pod to hers. She has disparaged herself of such fantasies before, but she can’t help how they bob to the surface of her mind.

The pool swirls.

Her guard circle, as skilled on human legs as they are with mer fins, and she holds a single hand up to stop them from their approach. The pool whirls, and bubbles spit from the torrent, glowing and shrieking with the rage of a summer storm. 

Red leeches into the green. Proof of a violent death.

Lightning flashes under the water. Hands grasp, the body shivers, spasms. She can feel his terror in the air before he emerges- she hears his clicks.

Jason wakes in a rage, and tears out someone’s throat.

* * *

They will be fine, of course. Neptune’s pool will see to that, and in some way this will spare Bruce the pain of worry. To kill in the heat of the hunt, for food and for survival, that is the way of mer. To kill for anger, for rage, is much less acceptable.

The sea passes judgement on those who garner it. Bruce has always been adamant that land will judge land, sea will judge sea, and eventually, things will all be brought to justice. He is not a fool, but he is certainly simple-minded, when it comes to this. To take another creature’s life is to interfere with life’s design- to claim power no one should have. It twists and warps a creature, he has insisted, and unless he is hunting, unless he is protecting, he can’t bring himself to take another’s life.

Talia loves that. She still loves him. She, herself, is an instrument of death. Law to an assassin is whichever knife comes for your throat first. And her father’s knife has always been there, a constant threat. He is law, which Talia manages to skirt so barely that some days, she wonders how she is alive.

And then she remembers Damian, her calf, her half-human half-mer son. And she remembers why she is alive.

If this one dies, she is to take his place as her father’s proxy. If she dies, Damian will take her place. One to inherit, and one to inhabit. As much as Talia loves Bruce, she loves Damian more- she loves him so fiercely that it whips at her, and surprises her constantly.

Damian swims, barely a child- he is four years old, and he circles Jason with interest. Talia waits outside of the pool, and watches them both.

She wishes to leave. She wishes to kill her father.

But as her love says, to take another creature’s life in rage… that power changes a person. Talia knows this firsthand, and she is so twisted, she wonders how she was given such a wonder as her Damian.

She cannot untwist herself, but she can stay as she is- and she can protect her child. Her children, she thinks, fingers drifting to the surface of the water. Jason has begun circling Damian as well, and now it is a game of chase. He is careful with Damian, as he can tell- this is a child.

Perhaps he can also tell that this child is Bruce’s pod. That could be the reason that Jason, angry and scared and feral as he is, allows Damian to swim to his arms and gently stroke the fins on his arms.

They click to each other. Talia doesn’t understand what they say, as she only catches the echoes.

Mother, father, pain. Human. Mer.

Jason doesn’t look at his fins. He just clicks, and bubbles rise from his mouth when he attempts to speak otherwise. His teeth are sharp, his coloration bright.

Bruce.

Talia steps into the pool, and her Damian twists his head to look at her, eyes bright. Jason sweeps in front of him, likely unaware of the behavior he’s exhibiting- pod. Child. Protect the child of the pod, threat, threat. His fins flare.

“Damian,” she says, signing for him to come up and change. “It is time for studies.”

Damian looks annoyed, but his respect is great and he winds around her beloved’s charge, climbing to the surface. Jason panics- she sees it in the green of his fluorescence before she sees it in his body language.

He snatches Damian, and holds him close under the water, eyes burning with hatred. Pod. Family. Keep.

Talia understands this drive, but children should not always be indulged. They have to learn. So she dives, human legs still present, and then strikes him before he can react. It is a perfect nerve attack, and she’s done it so many times the motion is second-hand to her. Jason goes limp, his neck thrashing. She gathers the larger mer in her arms, and steadies him. Damian clicks, berating the other. Do not attack mother. Do not attack pod. Only animals attack their own pod.

She signs safe- she spells it against Jason’s hand, and waits until he stops whipping the water in his fear. Damian soothes, though it is in his way- he explains her purpose, and that she is to be respected.

Talia rests the boy at the bottom of the tank, and swims for the light.

Damian follows.

Jason cries, song filling the water. But he must learn. She is not a threat, and Damian must be allowed to study.

He will regain his mind. And Talia will send him back to Bruce, along with her Damian.

She cannot untwist herself, but she can keep her son safe.

After all, that is what pod does.


End file.
